Having stayed in the Perhentians for an extra three days, we got back to the mainland with about 50 ringit ($17) left thinking that there would be an ATM there. Unfortunately this wasn't the case, but our bus driver assured us that we would be able to stop off at an ATM before we reached the national park. After a couple of hours and breakfast and lunch already eaten, the bus pulled up at a shop front and said you need to go and buy your national park entry tickets...uhhh....crap! we had about 10 ringit ($3) on us and we were [View Full Entry]

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We arrived at Kuala Besut at about 10am from Kuala Terengganu. As soon as we got off the bus we were harassed by people trying to sell us boat tickets to the islands. We weren't sure if they were trying to rip us off and charge us more than they should, so we walked towards the pier with a couple we met on the bus (Khalid - from Qatar and Mira - from Malaysia). Surprisingly, everyone did actually charge the same price, including the guys that ran at our bus when we arrived. We got onto the boat and arrived at [View Full Entry]

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Surprisingly our Air Asia flight from KL to KT was actually on time so we arrived at about 4pm. We intended on spending about 3 days in KT, however on the drive to our hotel we were already planning our escape. It was just a town, nothing particularly interesting to see or do. We ended up spending about 1.5 days there not doing a whole lot although we did go for a walk around the city to see the Sultan's Palace, a mosque, the foreshore etc. The Sultan's Palace wasn't particularly impressive. The building itself was alright, however he had no [View Full Entry]

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Bianca: We arrived in Kota Kinabalu after a 6hr bus ride via Ranau near Mt. Kinabalu. The bus ride was uneventful and we arrived in KK about 3pm. After we settled in we went for a walk and ended up trying 'cheesy wedges' at KFC...hmm. The following day we decided we should do some touristy things...so we walked to the Sabah Museum. It was probably only a 1.5km walk at most, however because of the heat and humidity we were both exhausted and drenched in sweat by the time we arrived. Turns out the walk was not worth it, the museum [View Full Entry]

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We caught a taxi out to the Sandakan War Memorial this morning which is just outside town. Its on the site of a Japanese POW camp which was used to hold British and Australian prisoners during World War 2. The camp held 2700 prisoners of which only 6 Australians (who managed to escape) survived. The site has been made into a memorial by the Australian government and was fantastic. The main pavilion has an extremely well presented history with photos of the camp and quotes from survivors. We spent about an hour reading all the information and looking at the photos, [View Full Entry]

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Bianca: We arrived in Sabah a few days ago after spending 22hours traveling from Melbourne to Kota Kinabalu (KK). Every single one of our three flights was delayed. The one from Melbourne to Sydney by one hour, which meant we had to clear customs, immigration and security at Sydney Airport in 20mins! Luckily we made it onto the plane. Our flight to KL arrived about 15minutes late. We were catching a connecting Air Asia flight to KK which apparently leaves from the Low Cost Terminal. We assumed that this meant we would walk to another area of the main airport which [View Full Entry]

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Siem Reap airport is quite possibly the nicest one we have seen. It looks more like an expensive resort on a tropical island than the tourist hub that it is. We made it through immigration (after Scott chose the slowest line yet again) and caught a taxi out the front to take us to the hotel which had been recommended by Michael (Vang Vieng). The hotel turned out to be great, nice clean bright rooms and only 3months old plus it included free breakfast which is always nice. Our first 2 days were spent exploring Siem Reap and waiting for Kat [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Vientiane after a 3hr minibus ride from Vang Vieng and were dropped pretty much out the front of our hotel. We decided that after a month we would splurge on a room (wow..$20!). It was worth it, it was clean and nice - about the standard of what we had all through Vietnam last year. After settling in we headed out for lunch at an Indian place just near our hotel. The food was amazing, so delicious and cheap. Lunch was followed by a walk through the city, until Bianca decided she was feeling a bit odd so [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Vang Vieng at about 4pm after a 7hour mini bus ride from Luang Prabang through the mountains. Had the road been straight it probably would have taken about an hour. Oh well, the scenery was really nice, the beautiful hills, the little villages (with their world vision/UNICEF water tanks) and the truck which had crashed into the side of the mountain squashing the entire cabin... Vang Vieng is quite possibly the weirdest place we have visited so far. The main street is lined with restaurants with couches and cushions rather than seats so that you are nice and [View Full Entry]

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Luang Prabang involved a lot of sitting on the internet watching the rain out the window - rain falling for the first time in 3 months and continuing basically the whole time we were there. We had originally planned on spending almost a week in LP because we had heard really good things about it, but on our first day there we went to book our flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia and ended up having to catch a flight 2 days earlier, so we cut 2 days from our LP time. The city itself is really pretty. Its world heretige [View Full Entry]

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